Probing the Massachusetts justices' minds

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The following is an imagined interview with the Massachusetts Supreme Court justices who ruled that Massachusetts must redefine marriage to include persons of the same sex.

Q: Every higher civilization has defined marriage as an institution joining members of the opposite sex. Did you take this into account before rendering your judgment to redefine marriage?

A: Frankly, we couldn't care less how so-called "higher civilizations" have defined marriage. They were all wrong.

Q: How do you so easily dismiss the accumulated wisdom of all higher civilization?

A: Because liberals value feelings, not wisdom. And our feelings led us to the decision to force Massachusetts to redefine marriage.

Q: And what did you feel?

A: That what the world needs is more love.

Q: But no one has challenged anyone's right to love anyone. You didn't rule on love, you ruled on the definition of marriage.

A: Marriage is an expression of love.

Q: If love is the issue, will you also rule in favor of people marrying more than one person they love? That will surely increase love in the world.

A: We chose not to address that issue in our verdict.

Q: What about an adult brother and sister who love each other and want to get married?

A: We chose not to address that issue in our verdict.

Q: But if love is the criterion, where is your logical or moral consistency in denying marriage to a person who loves two people or to two people who love each other but just happen to be in the same family?

A: As we noted earlier, we operated on feelings, and our primary feeling is compassion for gays. Feelings and compassion, not logic and reason or concern for preserving higher civilization, are what make us liberals.

Q: Where is your compassion for children?

A: What do children have to do with our decision?

Q: It will now be far easier for children to be adopted by same-sex couples. This means that in the case of two married men, children will be deprived of a mother from birth and forever; and in the marriage of two women, children will be deprived of a father from birth and forever.

A: We do not believe that a child is better off with a mother and a father. All a child is needs love.

Q: So the liberal understanding is that mothers are entirely unnecessary?

A: As we said, all a child needs is love. And we have compassion for gays.

Q: Why not leave such a civilization-changing decision to the American people or at least to their elected representatives?

A: We don't trust the American people. Half of them vote Republican, vast numbers believe in the Bible, even many Democrats are not as enlightened as we are, and most Americans do not have our compassion for gays.

Q: Doesn't it smack of hubris for four people to coerce millions of people into redefining the single most important human institution?

A: When you are more enlightened and more compassionate than others, you recognize the limitations of democracy, and you make the world better in any way you can.

Q: You consider yourselves more enlightened and more compassionate than all the wise men and women in history, than all the religions of the world, than the Bible?

A: No question about it. We went to law school, and we have compassion for gays.

Q: If your decision remains the law of your state, as little girls begin seeing women married to women in the media and in life, when they think about marriage, they will consider marrying a woman, not only a man. Does that trouble you?

A: Even if it did, we would still have compassion for gays.

Q: Are you saying, then, that you would be just as happy if young children see two women or two men kissing as you would if they saw a man and a woman kissing? That you don't care if your own children marry someone of the same sex? That you would be just as happy at your child's wedding, if your son married a man or if your daughter married a woman?

A: No, we would not say those things. But we have compassion for gays.

Q: So, because of compassion for gays, you are prepared to subvert democracy, destroy the family unit as civilization has always defined it, cause children to begin to imagine marrying a person of their own sex, and declare that mothers have nothing distinctive to give to a child that two men cannot give and vice versa?

A: Now you know how important compassion is to us liberals.

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JWR contributor Dennis Prager hosts a national daily radio show based in Los Angeles. He the author of, most recently, "Happiness is a Serious Problem". Click here to comment on this column.

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